USD College Republicans

Israel: tougher than we think

Israel would survive a nuclear war with Iran, says the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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"The report assesses that a nuclear war would last approximately three weeks and ultimately end with the annihilation of Iran, due to Israel's alleged possession of weapons with a far larger yield. Israel, according to the assessment, would have a larger chance of survival. The report does not attempt to predict how many deaths would eventually be caused by possible nuclear fallout.

Even if Iran gained the means and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, according to the report it would still be limited to 100 kiloton weapons, which can cause a far smaller radius of destruction than the 1 megaton bombs Israel allegedly possesses."
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"Another scenario presented by the report includes Syria joining the bandwagon in case of a war and lobbing missiles with chemical and biological warheads into Israeli cities. According to the report, up to 800,000 Israelis would be killed if that were to happen. Syria, however, would be forced to grapple with the deaths of approximately 18 million of its citizens were Israel to respond with its nuclear arsenal.
Israel, the report says, would launch a nuclear attack on Cairo and additional Egyptian cities, and would destroy the Aswan Dam if Egypt joined the fray."
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This report is absolutely fascinating, though a bit morbid. Despite all of their saber-rattling, Iran and it's allies (the Arab nations surrounding Israel), would be crushed in a military conflict. This, of course, is reminiscent of the Six-Day war. Unfortunately, the report (according to the article), doesn't take into account any support from Israel's allies. One would hope the US wouldn't get involved with regard to nuclear weapons, but it would be interesting to study the international ramifications of such an event.
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Israel has been shoring up its defenses in recent months, even working to prepare their citizens for missile attacks.
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 08:55AM Dec 24, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]

Congressional Democrats politicize torture?

An interesting Washington Post article states that congressional Democrats were briefed on waterboarding in 2002. Some interesting revelations, indeed...
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""The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange."
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"Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan)."
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"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings. "But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.' "
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This is extremely interesting. I hope congressional Democrats didn't politicize torture, but I wouldn't put it past them.
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 03:12AM Dec 10, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[2]

Another take on Bush's foreign policy

RealClearPolitics has an interesting article today comparing and contrasting Christmas 2006 with Christmas 2007.
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"The world looks safer, friendlier, more hopeful than it did as we approached Christmastime last year.

Then, we were on the defensive, perhaps on the verge of defeat, in Iraq. The Europeans' attempts to persuade Iran to renounce nuclear weapons seemed to have failed. Hugo Chavez was using his near-dictatorial powers and the oil wealth of Venezuela to secure the election of opponents of the American "empire" in Latin America.

Today, things look different. And they suggest, to me at least, that the policies of the Bush administration, pilloried as bankrupt by the Democrats after their victory in congressional elections in November, have served American interests better than most Americans then thought."
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Keep reading- it's quite thought provoking!
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 03:07AM Dec 10, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]

Israeli Minister upset at the US

A high-ranking Israeli Minister says the US is ignoring the growing Iranian threat.
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"The manner in which the Americans relate to the intelligence report on Iran is similar to the way in which they viewed those reports they received during the Holocaust on railways transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their death at Auschwitz," Minister Yitzhak Cohen of Shas said during a security cabinet meeting Sunday morning on the Iranian nuclear issue.
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This is certainly interesting, especially in light of the new information about Iran's nuke program.
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 03:00AM Dec 10, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[2]

Kasparov on Putin

Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, published an an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today.
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Kasparov, a leader of the Other Russia Coalition, a group dedicated to a democratic, free Russia, was jailed this past week for "disobeying the orders of a police officer."
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"For years the governments of the U.S. and Europe have tried to accept Vladimir Putin's Russia as an equal. Western diplomats now acknowledge that there are differences between Russia and the West, but say these differences are minor, and--in the words of one European Union official--within an "acceptable range."

For me and for a dozen of my associates last week, that "acceptable range" was 120 square feet. That's the size of the jail cell I occupied for five days as punishment for "disobeying the orders of a police officer" at an opposition rally in Moscow last Saturday. That's the charge a Moscow district court added after the fact, a charge not mentioned in the handwritten testimony of the arresting officers."
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Kasparov's take on Putin's Russia is interesting, yet frightening. One could assert that it is only a matter of a few years until Putin re-establishes a Soviet-esque socialist regime.
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 04:14PM Dec 02, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]

Exit polls indicate Putin wins...imagine that

Initial reports say that Putin's party has won the Russian parliamentary election by a landslide.
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"With ballots from about 30 percent of precincts counted, United Russia was leading with 63.6 percent, while the Communists—the only opposition party expected to get seats—were in a distant second with 11.3 percent, said Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov."
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""The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is the national leader, that the people support his course, and this course will continue," said party leader and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov said after the exit polls were announced."
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Yeah, either that or he's up to those old KGB shenanigans again.
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 03:55PM Dec 02, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]

All this over a teddy bear?

SCARY

Posted at 08:34PM Dec 01, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]

Russia reverting to USSR?

Mankiw reports a startling change in Russia's economic policy- price controls on food items. This is reminiscent of the old USSR-Gotta keep planning that economy!
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http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/can-shortages-be-far-behind.html#links
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-Matt Hittle

Posted at 02:44PM Dec 01, 2007 by College Republicans in Foreign Policy  |  Comments[0]